


One Breath in Space

by ProwlingThunder



Series: Two and a Number [2]
Category: Gundam Wing, Seihou Bukyou Outlaw Star | Outlaw Star
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Antisocial AIs, Artificial Intelligence, Child Soldiers, Gen, Isolationism, Junkers - Freeform, Orphans, Retired Child Soldiers, Retired Soldiers, Space Wreckage, Spaceship AIs, Spaceships, Survivors, Team as Family, chosen family, lost family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 03:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8270236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: Duo's life has always been about timing. The right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the right time. This time, Fate's let him be the former... and the latter, both.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neopilot00](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neopilot00/gifts).



> Two and a Number Meme: Duo Maxwell (Gundam Wing) and Gene Starwind (Outlaw Star). #10, Breathe.

Scavenging was a junker's downtime hobby, and Duo was a junker despite anybody's words to the contrary. Maybe being a junker wasn't the most glamorous lifestyle, but child soldiers got to retire as whatever the hell they wanted to retire as, and he had chosen this one: flying around the galaxy up to the craggy old man age of sixty (he had outlived his previous estimate by about twenty years now, and was well and truly prepared to blame it on the Winner Foundation) and finding things to tinker with, blow apart, and otherwise be amused by. There was the added bonus of the fact that nobody blinked when a junker came into an area; they weren't particularly political, by nature, and they usually weren't soldiers, and they were overlooked.

So if there were people who the God of Death needed to visit.. ehh. Well. That was just the flip of his collar, and Deathscythe was in the Leviathan's bay, ready and waiting if he needed to put the fear of God back in people.

It wasn't like that wasn't what  _ every single one of them _ were doing, when the situation called for it.

Though, granted, some faces were more familiar to troublemakers in some circles than others, and those faces only had to be glanced at before the less stubborn and the more intelligent fled in their wake. One of the recent news reports flagged with Quatre's name showed a video of him walking into an armed hostage situation armed with nothing but his eyeglasses. The report was a little vague on how it had gone down exactly, saying only that Mister Winner had disarmed the situation without fatality, but considering the video ended with three injured hostage-takers and Quatre  _ walking  _ out of the building  _ without _ his glasses, Duo could kind of guess how it had gone down.

They had all come out of the war with scars, with nightmares, and with monsters beneath their ribs, behind their eyes. Duo may have been the God of Death, but he had accepted that title a long,  _ long  _ time before he had ever laid eyes on Deathscythe.

Quatre was Zero. Of the six surviving Gundam Pilots, Duo pegged him the  _ most  _ dangerous, not the least. (The least dangerous, laughably, was 01 himself, the Perfect Soldier. Duo shored up the way he missed his friend carefully and made a point not to go looking for any of his fingerprints on the 'web.)

He panned down to the comments section and typed in a little acknowledgement, signed it with  _ and a farmer in the field at harvest _ , and let the Leviathan shove it off through the nearest mail buoy just as an alert popped up in the corner of his display _. _

He tapped the screen to open it up, and a security video of one of the many hallways appeared at once. A redheaded twelve year old stumbled out on two shaky legs, smearing glittery-glowing bio-gel all over the John Deer green he'd painted the hall. A frowny face showed on the top of the screen; Leviathan's feelings on the matter.

The Leviathan was a good ship, built mostly out of overhauled parts and the best of ~~stolen~~  scavenged parts. He had done almost all the work himself; he  _ did _ have a degree in  _ your mobile suit is currently FUBAR and someone has to die tomorrow. _ The best classes were the ones that started with last-minute panic. The war had been full of those.

The computer AI was Gabriel, and Gabriel was Duo's slicer baby. As a watered-down version of the Zero System, Gabriel was ever-watchful, great at navigation, and  _ amazing _ at predictive algorithms and evasive maneuvers during combat. Of course, as a watered-down version of the  _ Zero System, _ the Leviathan had no on-board weaponry or remote access to any weaponry of any kind, because Duo would not be responsible for retroactively bombing a planet from orbit.

It was Gabriel's favorite recommendation for hostile encounters. And non-hostile encounters... ..and mostly Gabriel's favorite recommendation for dealing with people at all. The AI was very much not a people person, and Duo couldn't really blame him. People could be assholes. Still, turning escape pods into space versions of the hot potato? A little much. He'd disabled Gabriel's verbalization mode when he had brought the escape pod in on the tow line a few hours ago and figured out how  _ young _ the occupant had been.

The debris area wasn't  _ small. _ Wreckage of a privately owned small business ship were spread all throughout the sector. There were other escape pods in the mess, and all of them were empty. He wasn't going to let Gabriel be a dick to the lone survivor just because he thought other people in general presented too high a risk threshold.

But it  _ was _ good to see the kid was up and moving around, Duo thought, reluctantly getting out of the super-comfy communications chair. The kid probably wanted some answers, and Duo could give him at least a few and shrug on the rest while he whipped up some good ol' American pancakes. A lot of the Leviathan could be accessed remotely, but he'd still thought an actual  _ kitchen _ was among the most important.

The kid hadn't made it very far when Duo caught up to him, though he no longer walked like somebody ill with the Plague. Somewhere he'd found a wrench and held onto it like a weapon, both hands curled around it and holding it at the wrong angle to get a good strike. Not that a  _ bad _ strike meant  _ no  _ strike, Duo's shoulder reminded him ten minutes later as he mixed pancake batter in a bowl and watched the fidgety preteen perched on his bar stool. From the horrified and alarmed explanation he'd gotten, Gene-- his name was Gene-- had been expecting pirates and  _ not _ the under-glorified tow-trucker he was. He hadn't registered that he was an old man before he swung, and he'd  _ surprised _ him.

Which was a fair guess, Duo supposed, because he did do the tugboat thing occasionally and he  _ was _ an old man and the wrench had  _ originally _ been aimed to smash him in the face.

"Some of the most dangerous people I know are old folks." Noin, Zechs and Une most specifically were all in their  _ eighties, _ and Une most of all had not mellowed with age.

"You  _ are _ one of those old dangerous people," Gabriel quipped from the wall, hologram leaning up against the surface. Duo hadn't designed the hologram, and so it wasn't his fault Heero Yuy's doppleganger was flagrantly disregarding instructions in his kitchen.

Gene glared at the hologram distrustfully, which went to prove how smart the kid was, being paranoid against Heero's final adjustments.

"Gabriel, didn't I tell you--"

"If I can't say something nice, don't turn on the speakers. I did say something nice. Also I need to let you know that by the time you get done eating those, we'll be heading into an ion storm at present course."

"An ion storm..?"

"A pretty nasty piece of work," Duo sighed. If it wasn't too bad, then Gabriel could probably get the Leviathan through it on his own, but that was a lot of equipment to monitor while his brain was stuffed with cotton. Better to have Duo do it himself. "They're one hell of a ride, but they can rip some ships apart if they're not paid mind to. Don't worry though, kiddo, we'll ride it and get you home by this time tomorrow." And after that, he'd take a bit and restock.

And after  _ that, _ he'd poke the ship register and see who painted themselves in yellow gold. If someone out there was tearing civilian ships apart, he needed to let  _ everybody _ know.

And then...

And then he'd take the time to have a breather.


End file.
